A new book doesn't shy away from taking on what it calls the biggest domestic problem facing this country.

It's the declining state of the American family, and what that means for the nation's future. In short, nothing good.

Family fragmentation, author Mitch Pearlstein says in "Broken Bonds," leads to educational, economic and other losses that result in decreased social mobility and deepening class divisions.

In the search for explanations, Pearlstein -- founder and president of the conservative think tank Center of the American Experiment -- says one vital cause is routinely overlooked: "How men and women in the United States move in and out of relationships faster than anyplace else, and in so doing hurt millions of children."

It's a touchy topic. "When people have spoken about these things on occasion, they have been called terrible names," including "sexist" and "racist," he told us. "There's nothing worse in this country than to be called a racist."

For whatever reason, Pearlstein said, "I've been put on this planet to deal with this subject," on which he started writing in graduate school in the 1970s. "Broken Bonds," released last week, is a follow-up to his 2011 book, "From Family Collapse to America's Decline."

According to Pearlstein, a former member of the Pioneer Press Editorial Board, family fragmentation affects every conceivable measure of child and adolescent well-being, be it criminal activity, early sexual initiation, mental health and, of course, education.

Advertisement

His message should resonate in Minnesota, where one of the nation's largest gaps between white students and their peers of color resists treatment. "There is no way whatsoever we can significantly reduce achievement gaps," he told us, "as long as out-of-wedlock birth rates are the way they are, not to mention divorce rates, not to mention co-habiting rates," where people move in and out of relationships.

The percentage of African American children born out of wedlock, according to 1963 census data he noted, was 23.6 percent. It's now about 72 percent.

Work on "Broken Bonds" took Pearlstein around the Twin Cities and on the road across the nation for interviews with 40 individuals -- scholars, public servants and others -- "men and women, left and right, black and white," he said.

"They didn't represent a scientific sample, only a brilliant one," he writes.

After a year of interviews, "I was sitting on gold. This was great stuff," Pearlstein told us, and his experts had a lot to say -- what amounted to 1,400 typed transcript pages -- later shaped into a slim volume.

There weren't many optimists in this group, Pearlstein told us, but some Minnesotans on his panel struck hopeful notes:

The nation, McGrath said, remains one "that deals with its political issues through compromise, debate and exchange," adding that we're also a "dynamic" country in which recognition of family fragmentation as a major problem is "clearer than it has ever been."

-- Former Minneapolis Mayor and Congressman Don Fraser told Pearlstein he thinks our educational system will improve, although "maybe not as quickly as some of us would like to see." But those resisting such movement, Fraser continued, will be "folks who find it difficult to change, particularly the unions."

Another Minnesotan, former Metropolitan Council Chair Peter Bell, offered comments, Pearlstein writes, that "provide a good link between what government can do and what it cannot, especially when it comes to the most troubled among us."

If the goal is deep, wide and fundamental change, Pearlstein quotes Bell saying, there are "real limits to what government can do."

Government, Pearlstein writes, can "help mitigate, but not necessarily do much more."

Wherever solutions are to be found, "Broken Bonds" should help prompt a needed conversation, here and across the nation.